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Gerson: Calendars have extra meaning in Judaism

We Jews do things in certain ways, often hard to understand by the general community.

Interestingly, this is the time of year when many of us shop for our calendars, namely our Jewish calendars. Why on earth, you may ask, are we doing this in the midst of summer, and not in December, at the end of 2012?

The answer is that the Jewish year begins in the fall, with the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. So, we need these calendars now.

But, this brings me to a wider subject, that of calendars themselves. We all have them — on walls, our desks, in our pockets, and now on our phones. It seems like a very simple object.

But, for Jews, it becomes a potent symbol, with respect to the way we direct our lives.

Actually, we Jews follow two calendars.

Like everyone, we utilize the general civil calendar, the Gregorian, which is solar.

Through it, we organize our basic lives. I often have seen these rather plain, big calendars, hanging in offices and business establishments. Often, someone marks an X through empty square, day after day.

Except for an occasional holiday, that’s about all there is to these secular calendars.

But, we also have our Jewish calendar, which is lunar, following the cycles of the moon. This calendar is very different.

Almost every day, every square, has something religious in it — holy days, sacred periods of the year, new moons, Torah and Prophetic readings for each Sabbath, and ceremonies prior to holidays.

There is something very important theologically in this difference, to which we all can relate. Time is not empty squares on a calendar, day after day.

Time is what is sacred, a gift from God.

In contrast, space is really not sacred. God does not live in buildings; as one Chassidic sage said, “He lives anywhere that we let him in.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel, great theologian of the 20th century, wrote: “It was the glory of Greece to have discovered the idea of the cosmos, the world of space; it was the achievement of Israel to have experienced the world of time.”

So what is important is how we fill this time — these days of the calendar. How can we make them holy?

Perhaps the best answer is in the Talmud — with three things — prayer, study and, most of all, deeds of loving-kindness.

Ultimately, the question for all of us is, are we mainly just marking off X’s each day on the civil calendar? Or are we really sanctifying time, every day, with sacred precious acts that uplift our lives.

Time is sacred; we need to make it so.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “Guard well your time. ... It is like an uncut diamond. Discard it, and its value will never be known; improve it, and it will become the brightest gem in a useful life.”

And so it is with time — sacred time.

• Rabbi Ronald Gerson is the rabbi emeritus of Congregation Children of Israel in Athens.